The Western doctrine of non-violence depends on the willingness to compromise. To resolve any conflict by sitting down at a table, finding points of agreement and then working through the rest. The ruthless killing fields of the twentieth century have not shaken that eternal faith in a diplomatic solution, rather they have only strengthened it. But what happens when a compromise is genuinely impossible?
The commitment to non-violence depends on the assumption that while small numbers of fanatics might seek war, the vast majority of people do not. And even if they do want war, they want a humane war, not a genocidal war of extermination. Therefore even when such wars are fought, they do not reflect the will of the people, only that of a small group of fanatics.
That such a manifestly absurd belief that flies in the face of human history could be so widely held among the decision makers of the world’s dominant civilizations is itself apt testimony to the decline and fall of those civilizations. Nevertheless this belief remains unshakeable.
Atrocities are attributed to a dictator and a few of his cronies. Remove the dictator, roll in the voting booths and then we need make war no more. But the rise of Islamic terrorism presents an explosive challenge to that worldview. There is no Hitler or Stalin of Islam. No small group holding power on which everything can be blamed. In the age of terrorism, it is the ordinary Muslim who acts as the killer. Who sheds his guise of humanity and kills.
Islamic terrorism is the most democratic and representative form of war there is. There is no draft. No government mandate. And no compulsion but that of the Koran. Of course in territories under their control, becoming a Jihadist sometimes is compulsory. But that certainly isn’t the case in the West. While Western diplomats chatter about democracy, the Muslim votes with his bomb vest. And his vote is the decisive one. Read the rest on:
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